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In a recently uploaded interview by Dirty Mo Media, Darrell Waltrip recounted the time he unsuccessfully tried to sign Dale Earnhardt Jr. from his father Dale Sr. Despite sharing one of the most intense and long-lasting rivalries in NASCAR history, Waltrip and Dale Sr. were also known to be close friends and held a mutual respect for each other off the track.
In fact, at one point late in his Cup career, Darrell Waltrip even drove for Dale Earnhardt-owned DEI in 1998 with the #1 car. While Waltrip didn't win a race driving for Earnhardt, he did finish inside the top 5 once at Fontana. During his conversation with Dale Jr. in a DirtyMoMedia episode uploaded on January 13, Waltrip revealed how he tried signing Dale Jr.
"I went over to Dale Earnhardt Sr., I said, 'Dale, what's your plan for Dale Jr.?' He said, 'What do you want to know for?' I said, 'I want to try and hire him.' He said, 'You stay away from him. You'll pay him too damn much money I won't be able to compete with you. You stay away from him. I got plans for him.'" [1:55:30]
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Waltrip revealed that Earnhardt Sr. called him after this and told him that Dale Earnhardt Jr. had signed a $10 million deal with Budweiser, which the former found to be 'a pretty good deal.' As Waltrip revealed this, Dale Jr. claimed that it was 'the biggest' deal at that time in NASCAR.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Budweiser deal wasn't decided based on finances, as per Don Hawk
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s deal with Budweiser, which was initially reported to last until 2004, was a big hot topic in NASCAR in 1998. For one, Earnhardt Jr. was the son of the sports' biggest star at that time, who was also coming off of a Busch Series championship win.
More importantly, it was reported that the $10 million deal was the biggest in Winston-Cup history at that time. Speaking about this, Don Hawk, the president of DEI refused to confirm or deny it while revealing (as quoted by Pocono Record):
"It's stout, I can tell you that. I think they refer to race cars as stout, and this is stout."
Hawk revealed that Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s exploits in the second tier of NASCAR attracted a lot of interest from major corporations who wanted to sponsor him. But despite that, the DEI president claimed that they played 'no poker', and it wasn't a deal decided by financial factors.
Hawk said that it was a question of which sponsor would take the driver 'the longest and the farthest', mentioning that at no point did DEI put two potential sponsors against each other by comparing their numbers.
